


perpetual motion

by plantyourtreeswithme



Series: murder can be an art, too [1]
Category: Rope (1948)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, M/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-04
Updated: 2017-09-04
Packaged: 2018-12-22 09:06:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,610
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11964225
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/plantyourtreeswithme/pseuds/plantyourtreeswithme
Summary: "What makes me any different?" Phillip asked, and it was a genuinely good question. Brandon certainly would've answered if he knew how.





	perpetual motion

**Author's Note:**

> The movie "Rope" was shot, edited, and written phenomenally, and I loved watching/analyzing it in my film class - so why not write about the twisted subtext, too?
> 
> The piece that Phillip keeps playing throughout the film is called ["Perpetual Motion"](https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=3&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwiKvazm94nWAhXk54MKHWX1CSQQtwIINDAC&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DR7Z_3EA9pyY&usg=AFQjCNFfWyVjlJavQ9QFiEKKPIQT2csU1g) \- and it was written by a gay composer!
> 
> Canon divergence AU.

Three in the morning, and Phillip was at the piano.

"What are you  _doing_?" Brandon asked as he entered the sitting room, his lover's dressing gown tied sloppily around his waist and fatigue lingering in his eyes. He already knew the answer, but he wanted to make Phillip pause long enough to say it.

"What does it look like? I couldn't sleep," Phillip said in that antagonizing manner of his, not bothering to stop playing. His pinky reached for an accidental (one of the black keys, he'd told Brandon a few weeks after they'd first met) as he looked up, and for a moment, Brandon hoped he would miss - but he never did. His right hand graced over A sharp, then jumped to C natural, then B; Brandon hated that he knew the piece that well already. Sometimes, it echoed in his sleep, along with all the other jaunty little tunes.

Sometimes, Phillip himself lilted through his dreams and peppered him with kisses. Sometimes, the chest made an appearance, trapping Brandon inside and slowly filling with water and seaweed and bones...

"Well, now I can't, either. Can you save it for tomorrow?"

"It's already tomorrow," Phillip countered, and Brandon gave up. He sat next to him on the bench and leaned his head on his shoulder until he was drifting off again. Then Phillip finally stopped and half-dragged, half-carried him back to bed.

"We really should get you a grand," he suggested at breakfast the next morning, his hair mussed and his cheeks rough with stubble. He didn't care; in Connecticut, there was no reason to bother with one's appearance. His mother had left the farm to the two of them while she was visiting her sister, so for once, Brandon didn't have to put on a show. He could just be himself and fuck Phillip to no end if he wanted to.

And he always wanted to. What else was there to do on vacation?

"Fine, let's go shopping," Phillip relented sardonically, his hair perfectly coiffed and his tie dimple just so and his clothes pressed. He'd always looked put together, even in prep school when none of them knew what they were doing and the last thing they could be bothered with was anything like that. But Phillip Morgan always looked like he knew exactly where he belonged: sitting at a desk, writing diligently during a lecture; standing at the piano in a practice room, his fingers ghosting over the ivories without properly pressing down; or walking across the quad, unaware of Brandon's eyes following him as he returned from the grounds.

Now Brandon stared at him as he read the paper and nearly snorted at the headline. It was something about a sloppy little suffocation down south - they'd discovered a glove belonging to the murderer at the crime scene and found him within the week. An amateur move, really.

Phillip and Brandon knew nothing of getting caught, of course, but the idea was rather amusing. Sometimes, Brandon wondered what would've happened had he not removed the tag from the hat David had left behind. His partner nearly had a heart attack when Mrs. Wilson gave Rupert the wrong hat, but when he realized that their former teacher suspected nothing, he had allowed himself to breathe. And then he'd gotten himself another drink -  _two_ brandies in  _one night_ \- which he eventually doused Brandon with in his fury.

"You just have to play God, don't you?" he hissed - somehow, miraculously, keeping his voice low. Brandon didn't know how he wasn't screaming after everything he'd put him through. "Just had to give David's father the rope, and had to blatantly talk about it with Rupert, and had to serve dinner off of the goddamn chest. You've always had a flair for dramatics, Brandon, but this is..."

"Overkill?" Brandon offered, and that earned  _him_ a slap in return. Then he was shaking, his new suit ruined and his face red, and Phillip was standing in front of him, smelling of liquor and tears - and he had never loved him more.

Because at least Phillip had morals. Brandon didn't. He was a great man, but Phillip would always be a good one.

Phillip was good enough to know not to let Brandon hold his hand when they went out looking for a grand piano in the Connecticut countryside. "This is never going to work," he said, pulling away from his lover and shoving his hands in his pockets. "Even if we  _do_ find a piano, how will we get it back to New York? All we've got is the car."

"Always the voice of reason, aren't you?"

"Always," Phillip grinned. "Been your conscience since school."

"That's right."

"Why are we out here, then?"

"Perhaps I just wanted an excuse to kiss you in the sunlight," said Brandon. He leaned forward with a teasing expression, but Phillip wrenched himself away again, staring at the ground.

"You're being reckless, Brandon. Anyone could see us in broad daylight."

"I thought you didn't like the darkness," Brandon quipped without thinking, and Phillip stopped in his tracks. "No," he continued, panicking, "no, no, no, I didn't mean - Phillip, I -"

"I want to go home," was all Phillip said.

"All right, we'll turn around, then."

"I mean, back to New York. I'm sick of it here, and it's been much longer than we said we would stay."

"Well, Mother still wants us to watch the house for a few more days," Brandon protested weakly. He hated the vulnerability in his tone, but he could never do anything but open around Phillip, of course. "She phoned today to say she'll come soon, and when she does, we can leave."

"Can't we just  _go_ , Brandon? Tomorrow - please -"

"Hey." He moved closer and said,  _"Hey,"_ again, embracing Phillip and tucking his head into the crook of his neck. "Yes, fine, we can go. We'll leave whenever you like. Just a little while longer, Phillip, and then things will finally go back to normal."

"I'm tired of waiting," Phillip said, his mouth moving against the collar of Brandon's shirt.

"I know."

 

* * *

 

"Want a drink?"

Phillip looked up at him from the sofa and shook his head. Brandon approached the decanter anyway and poured himself a bit of Scotch.

They had been home for half an hour now, and all they had done was sit curled up on the couch together, Phillip's hand tracing Brandon's cheek and Brandon's head resting in his lap. Then Brandon had suddenly risen when he noticed Phillip's eyes fixed on the spot where the chest had stood just a few weeks ago. His hands were twitching, and he needed something to calm down, but his cigarette case was still in his suitcase and he couldn't be bothered to unpack just yet.

He had forgotten how much he hated Scotch, so he set the glass down and returned to Phillip's side.

"We had to do it, you know," he said - a shitty way to start a conversation, really, but he had to try.

Phillip didn't look at him when he asked, "What, kill David?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Because..." Brandon paused and thought back to all the times he'd come across Phillip and David sitting together in the school courtyard, laughing about something the other had said or chatting animatedly about a lesson.

"Because he was nothing," he replied decisively, "and because we're everything."

"No,  _you're_ everything," Phillip corrected him emotionlessly. There was no awe in that statement, no wonderment that implied what he really meant was  _you're everything to_ me _._

"I'm nothing," he added a few moments later, as if it was an afterthought. As if it needed saying.

"Phillip, you and I are a different breed of man," Brandon said. He pulled himself up from where he had been slouching against the pillows and straightened his back. "It's like what Rupert always said - well, I doubt he says it anymore, but still: murder is a privilege for only the select few. That privilege is our right, and you know that."

"Not for me, Brandon."

"You're  _better_ \- you and me both, the rest of them are just -"

"What makes me any different?" Phillip asked, and it was a genuinely good question. Brandon certainly would've answered if he knew how.

Instead, they sat there in silence, and Brandon tried not to think of Phillip mentioning David in passing, gushing about how smart he was in the privacy of their dormitory, recounting their adventures over the summer together when they were finally reunited at the beginning of the school year...

 

* * *

 

"A-are you nervous?" Brandon said, straightening Phillip's tie and brushing a stray curl out of his face. He wouldn't meet Brandon's eyes, no matter how hard he looked at him.

"Do you f-feel ready?" he continued, loathing his body for betraying him in such an asinine way.

Of course, Phillip said nothing. Phillip wasn't trembling or stuttering or doing anything. He just watched Brandon methodically, almost as if he were studying him -  _studying with David in the library while Brandon listened to them from behind the bookshelves, giggling when David took his pen from him and told him his handwriting was dreadful, smiling broadly at him when he said all of Phillip's answers were correct..._

"Brandon."

He realized what he was doing and released his grip on Phillip's tie.

"Are you alright?" Phillip asked him as he stepped away. There wasn't an ounce of hatred in his voice, but something in Brandon's subconscious told him that there should be.

"I'm j-just excited, is all." He reached up to frame Phillip's face with his hands, but stopped halfway. Something akin to fear was glittering in his lover's eyes, and now he was thinking about leather gloves and rope tight as a noose round David's neck and how badly he wanted a cigarette right now.

"I can't believe you're not practicing," he said, relieved that his words no longer faltered. "Fifteen minutes till the performance, and you're not worried at all."

"You're here with me," Phillip shrugged. "What is there to be worried about?"

Brandon couldn't help but smile at that.

"I can't tell you how grateful I am," the pianist continued, "that you managed to book Town Hall. However did you do it, Brandon?"

"Called in a few favors," he replied, finally letting himself cradle Phillip's cheek with his right hand. "All I really did was tell people how proud of you I was, and the rest just worked itself out, I suppose. Have I ever said that before?"

"Said what?"

"That I'm proud of you." He took a great, shuddering gulp of air and pushed their foreheads together, his eyes sliding shut. "And that I love you."

"You say that every day, Brandon," Phillip breathed as he leaned in for a kiss, and those words sunk into Brandon's chest like bullets, because he didn't say,  _I love you, too._

 

* * *

 

"Hey -" Phillip broke free of the horde and approached Brandon, his face shining with exhilaration. "One of the patrons is having a party at the Marriott, and all of the musicians are invited - I can bring whoever I want, are you coming?"

"Oh," Brandon said, caught off guard, "I'm a little tired, Phillip. If I do, we'll have to head home early."

"No, I want to stay the whole time," said Phillip. "The Kentleys are going to be there, and I assumed you would want to see them and rub our success in their faces a bit more."

Brandon nearly gasped; cruelty was not a color that suited Phillip Morgan.

"Fine, I'll see you at home," he continued when Brandon didn't respond. "You'll get a cab, won't you?"

Someone neither of them knew came up to congratulate Phillip, and he turned away again, leaving Brandon utterly alone - even as he stood right next to the performer whose fame was increasingly growing.

"Yes, the Chopin was lovely, wasn't it?" he heard someone inferior say as he drifted away, still rooted to the spot in that gaudy, upholstered lobby. He had promised Phillip he would never kill again, but that didn't mean he couldn't still  _think_ about it, right?

 

* * *

 

The key squeaked in the lock, and the front door opened, and Brandon heard Phillip come inside, the trace of alcohol in his slightly uneven steps. He looked over at the clock on the nightstand and winced at the time: 4:37 AM.

After a few minutes of deliberation in the foyer, Phillip slid into bed next to him without changing out of his tuxedo (he would surely regret that in the morning) and said nothing.

"I thought we might do something special," said Brandon, effectively breaking the terse silence between them. "Alone. But it seems you had other plans."

Phillip rustled the sheets as he reached back to take his cummerbund off. "Brandon -"

"Mrs. Atwater was right, you know," he remarked thoughtfully; "you  _are_ famous for your hands."

There was a somewhat halting sigh, and then: "Goodnight."

(It wasn't.)

 

* * *

 

"We should just  _go_ somewhere," Brandon suggested at dinner the next day. He paused for a moment when the waiter came to collect their menus, took a sip of his water, and then kept talking. "Out of the country, maybe - a real, proper vacation."

"What about Connecticut?" Phillip asked. He kept fiddling with the tablecloth for some reason, as if he was nervous. It irked Brandon.

"Connecticut was just a getaway. I'm talking about somewhere lovely, like Italy or France or somewhere else in Europe. Maybe Spain?"

Phillip said nothing for a long, long while, and then he cleared his throat and said, "Brandon, what do we need a vacation for?"

The waiter came back and set their food down, and Phillip waited for him to leave before he continued again. "I just had my debut last night, and I've already been asked to play at some other venues -"

"You were? When?" Brandon pressed, leaving his food untouched.

"At the after-party, which you neglected to come to."

"Well." He picked up his knife and fork and tore into his steak. "I didn't want to intrude upon your newfound popularity, Phillip."

"You wouldn't have," Phillip insisted, and Brandon could almost feel his gaze burning his face with its intensity. "You could've just come and enjoyed the party, Brandon. I wouldn't have strayed too far; I would've stayed with you the whole time. I know you didn't know anybody there, but -"

"That's exactly it, Phillip," he said, taking a bite and finding it much too dry. "I didn't know anybody - therefore, I was no one."

"And you just couldn't stand that, could you? Never mind doing something for Phillip Morgan - no, you'd much rather be as selfish as always, right?"

 _"Selfish?"_ Brandon said, almost yelling. He took a moment to breathe and lower his voice before saying, "Who was it that managed to get you the Town Hall gig again, Phillip?"

"Someone else offered to get me a few nights at Carnegie," Phillip said triumphantly. He was still messing with the tablecloth, practically wringing it in his hands like he had wrung David's neck -

"Why are you so mad at me?"

"Because you're not happy."

And that reminded him of a night in their third year of prep school, when Phillip had asked him why he looked so upset and Brandon said, "No reason," and Phillip asked, "You sure?" and Brandon replied, "Why don't you come over here and find out?" and things had gone swimmingly from there.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"You're not happy with...  _this_ ," said Phillip, gesturing around the room. "With our life. With me. With the way things are. You'd much rather be - well, we both know what you'd rather be doing, I won't say it aloud."

"You think I'm not happy with you?" Brandon said, his voice nearing a whisper. "Phillip, I swear, I -"

"Brandon, if you were, you wouldn't have done what you did."  _To David,_ were the words unspoken, and Brandon's reply hitched in his throat.

 

* * *

 

From then on, Brandon resolved to be as happy as he possibly could. He would coerce Phillip into lazy sex on the sofa where he let him lead, content to lie underneath and tilt his head back against the cushions in ecstasy and just let himself be taken care of. He tried to let Phillip take the reigns, to relinquish the tight grip of control he had around every aspect of their lives. He let Phillip pick the bars and the restaurants and the moving pictures, and he pretended to approve of his choices even when he hated them.

He did things for Phillip, too: he talked to Mrs. Morgan on the phone when her son didn't want to, and he visited dusty shops to buy him reams of old sheet music, and he went to every concert Phillip played at. There were more and more each month - there was no denying that Phillip's name was spreading.

With the fame came the worrying, too. Sometimes, Phillip would get anxious at galas when reporters asked him about his personal life, and Brandon would always attempt to apply his wonderful charm and joke that the reason Phillip was so flustered was because he'd courted so many girls in his youth. Then the press would always laugh and titter about how amusing Mr. Morgan's bachelor companion was - wasn't he just hilarious, Helene, so dreadfully funny?

"They'll never find out," Brandon told him afterwards when Phillip was hunched over a toilet bowl, his face sickly and discolored and his back warmed by Brandon's fingers. "How could they, Phillip? No one knows but us."

Phillip practiced less and less and performed more and more. It was hard to find the time to just enjoy a nice afternoon in the park when he had a matinee concert at two and an evening showcase at five thirty. And he didn't really need the practice, anyway; not when he played the same songs over and over and over again.

"I'm starting to hate the Poulenc," he complained one day - on the rare occasion that he found time to plunk out a few songs at home. "It's not nearly as uplifting as it used to be."

"I suppose everything's lost that certain quality, hasn't it?" Brandon called from the bedroom. "And isn't it about time we got you a grand to practice on?"

"I wouldn't use it, anyway," Phillip said, abandoning the piano to stand in the doorway. "Haven't got the time. Speaking of which, hurry up, won't you? We wouldn't want to be late."

"Of course; not to this."

They walked down to the limousine a few minutes later, their knuckles occasionally glancing together as they tried to abstain from holding hands. It was an old habit that they still hadn't broken, not even after thirteen years of caution and avoiding the public eye.

"Thanks so much for playing, Mr. Morgan," Janet Walker greeted them as they approached the church's entrance. She looked the same as she had at the dinner party a year ago: her hair was drawn back in tight, intricate waves pinned to her scalp, and her hands were clasped over her skirts in that funny little way of hers.

"It's just Phillip to you, Janet," Phillip told her as she went in for a hug; "I'm Mr. Morgan to my patrons."

"Well, you  _are_ playing for us, aren't you?" she said, laughing as if she'd said something funny. "And dear Brandon - you know, I've quite forgiven you for that funny little trick you played on me and Kenneth at the party last year."

"Ah, yes, Kenneth," Brandon said. He tried not to grit his teeth as she embraced him, too. "Aren't you two engaged now?"

"For the sake of convenience," Janet explained. "I've had trouble getting by ever since... well, I suppose you know the whole story already."

"We've heard rumors," Brandon said, a smirk playing across his lips.

"Oh, yes, those. I've heard rumors, too, you know."

"About what?" Phillip asked her rather sharply.

"Just that - well, that you're getting more famous by the minute, chum!" she said, elbowing Phillip in the side. Brandon's stomach lurched at the sight. "Played Carnegie three nights in a row and still getting paid splendidly. That's a fact, isn't it? I've heard you two are very well off nowadays."

"We get by, Janet," Brandon interjected as they entered the church. A strange coldness spread through his limbs like frost as they went through to the chapel, and his skin was prickling. He hadn't been to church since... well, since boarding school, when he would go home every winter to attend the Christmas Eve service with his family. Phillip had always made a point of going with his parents every Sunday he could, but now he simply didn't have the time. Brandon suggested he'd stopped going for other reasons, too, but he never asked him about it.

He couldn't help but feel unwelcome in the bitter, drafty sanctuary: besides the obvious, the people at the memorial service just seemed nasty and aloof. They looked at Phillip, the famous pianist, with recognition and wonder, but they looked at Brandon, the stranger at his side, with distaste. He clearly meant nothing; he was just a parasite attached to Phillip Morgan at the hip, following him down the row of pews and taking a seat in the second row where he had a perfect view of the stage.

"Is that Brandon Shaw I see?"

"Oh, Mrs. Atwater!" he exclaimed, rising from his seat to shake her hand and nod at her brother. "I was wondering when you and the Kentleys would be coming."

"Yes, we wouldn't want to turn up late, would we?" Mr. Kentley said, immediately grimacing at the unintentional joke. His wife made a strange choking sound and covered her painted mouth with her black satin gloves.

 _If Phillip could hear this, he'd laugh,_ Brandon thought, sending a glance his way before turning back to the horrified family. "I'm so sorry," he enthused; "today must be so hard for you."

"It is, indeed," Mrs. Atwater said in her rough, contralto voice. She pushed her veil out of her eyes and fanned her face for a few moments. "Oh, if only I had foreseen what was to come! But the stars are flighty, and I don't think anyone could've predicted what was to happen on that horrid night."

"Certainly horrid," Brandon agreed, choosing his words in the way a hunter chooses his knife.

"Oh! Oh, Brandon, you know I don't -"

"No, I know exactly what you meant, Mrs. Atwater; no harm at all."

"Excuse us, Brandon, we really should be sitting down now," said Henry Kentley, his hands quivering a bit and his face ashen. "I wonder if there's anything to drink," he muttered to his wife as they walked away to take their place in the front row.

Brandon looked up at the piano and made eye contact with Phillip, who gave him a small, tight smile. He didn't normally do memorial services, or even funerals, but it was for David - and they would do  _anything_ for their poor, deceased classmate.

 

* * *

 

At breakfast a few weeks later, Phillip broached the topic of marriage.

"My publicist has been talking," he said as Brandon poured him his coffee, "and he says it'd be good for my image if I were to marry."

Brandon blinked a few times, almost laughed, and said, "Not legal in this country or any other, Phillip."

"He meant to a woman."

His hand slipped, and suddenly, there was coffee on the tablecloth and floor.

"What'd you do that for?" Phillip chided, taking his napkin and bending down to clean up the mess he'd made. Brandon stood where he was and didn't answer, watching his companion mop up the coffee before it stuck to the linoleum.

"Sometimes," he said when Phillip stood up again, "I feel like you're leaving me behind."

"What do you mean by that?"

"You just... you're always moving ahead, Phillip, and I'm constantly playing catch-up," he said. "By the end of one performance, you've already scheduled three more; when I've just gotten used to another piece, you've decided to learn five new ones; when I've finally adjusted to how crazy our lives are, you tell me you're going to settle down with some  _girl_ and -"

"I'm not settling down with anyone!" Phillip interjected, setting the dirtied cloth down on the kitchen table. "I already told him I'm perfectly happy with the way things are, and I've no intention of changing things anytime soon. He just... he told me that maybe you shouldn't come to the next concert, and I wasn't really sure what to say to that, so I just told him I'd mull the whole marriage thing over for a while."

"Oh, so you don't want me to come anymore, is that it?"

"Of course I want you to come, Brandon. It's just - this is just so difficult, living in the public eye and knowing that at any second, they could find us out."

"Are you still worried about David?" he asked. "I told you, we've buried that so deep, no one will ever -"

"I'm talking about our relationship," Phillip replied. "We'll be condemned and sent to jail if anyone ever even sees us holding hands! We'll lose everything - the money, the apartment, my career - everything."

"Is that all that matters to you? Your  _career_?"

"No, that's not all that matters to me - that's just what lets us have such a comfortable lifestyle!" Phillip took a deep breath and pinched his brow in frustration. "And I don't want to lose that, Brandon. I don't want to lose what we have."

"Why can't you say it?" said Brandon, and he was suddenly horrified to find tears pricking at his eyes. "Why can't you just say,  _I love you, Brandon, and I don't want to lose you_? How come every time I tell you I adore you, or that you look good, or that I love you more than anything, you never reciprocate?"

"Because I'm afraid." The pianist stepped forward, his gaze steely, and something in the way he carried himself forced Brandon to look at him. "Do you remember when Rupert almost found us out at the party? He was so close to realizing it, and he kept asking me questions about what was going on - and I was so goddamn nervous, Brandon, but I didn't say anything. I held my tongue, even when you sent Henry Kentley home with the rope and when you teased Janet about David being late and did a hundred other things that almost gave it away. I swear, I thought you almost wanted to get caught, Brandon - just to prove that you actually _did_ commit the perfect crime.

"If I say I love you, you're bound to tell someone. Rupert, probably, or maybe even my publicist, or any damn stranger out on the street who just happens to know my name. If I trust you, you could ruin everything we have in an instant - and I'm perfectly happy to keep things the way they are now."

"What's a relationship without trust?" Brandon laughed, his entire body aching. He felt like he was going to throw up. "If you don't trust me, then why don't we just end it right here?"

"I do trust you - with everything except this one -"

"Say it, Phillip," he snapped. He wanted to strangle him right then and there. "I won't tell. Just say it."

Phillip opened his mouth and looked like he was about to say something, but didn't. Brandon sighed and went to get his hat.

**Author's Note:**

> All fic writers work incredibly hard and post their pieces for free (despite their own work/school schedules) - any kudos, bookmarks, or comments would be appreciated!


End file.
